If you’re looking to predict the weather, forget about sunspots or wooly caterpillars. The Pacific Ocean holds the key to what’s happening here. Matthew Campbell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, says that’s what long-range forecasters look at.

“We’re looking more at what’s happening in the Pacific: will there be a La Nina or an El Nino? Those are the kinds of things we’re looking at,” he says. “With La Nina, you generally get cooler temperatures off the coast of South America, unlike El Nino, where you get warmer temperatures.”

RELATED: Weather forecasts may look a little different this year

Campbell says a La Nina is expected this winter, “which can generally give us at least a more active weather pattern here in the Ohio Valley. So maybe more precipitation, but in terms of direction of the temperatures, it just depends: fronts cross Ohio, do they stay north of us It’s impossible to know that far away.

RELATED: Cincinnati prepares for 2024-25 winter

The first snow of this season is expected to begin Wednesday evening, with a wintry mix, and continue through Thursday.

“Yeah, Nov. 20 — we’re not too out of sync here,” Campbell said the day WVXU spoke to him. “We usually get our first accumulations of snow, it can happen in late November, so it’s not too uncommon.”

Campbell says if so warmer than usual, we could see more rain than snow over the next three months, although there are no guarantees at this time.